Big cat sightings unconfirmed

Biologists find no evidence to support reports of cougars, panthers in southern Indiana.

Biologists find no evidence to support reports of cougars, panthers in southern Indiana.

June 05, 2006

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) -- State biologists say they have yet to find anything to support several reported sightings over the past year of cougars or other big cats populating southern Indiana's forests. The sightings have come from several spots in Monroe County, with other reports from neighboring Owen and Greene counties. One report this spring was from a woman who saw what she described as a black panther mauling seven of her pigs in their fenced enclosure at her home outside Ellettsville. In some cases, people have reported cat cries so loud that they assume it must be a big cat such as a puma or panther. But wildlife experts both with the state Department of Natural Resources and at the Exotic Feline Rescue Center in nearby Clay County say bobcats -- which do inhabit the area -- can make quite a racket even though they are about the size of a large house cat. Scott Johnson, a biologist in Bloomington for the state's Fish and Wildlife Division, told The Herald-Times for a story last week that the last written report of any cougars, also known as pumas, being seen or killed in Indiana was from 1851. Jean Herrberg, assistant director of the feline center, said that each time a big cat is reported in the area, the center checks all its cougars and black leopards to make sure none has escaped. Cougars have been extending their range eastward in recent years as development steadily shrinks their habitat in the West. They have been confirmed in Missouri, Iowa, and western and southern Illinois. Those confirmed in Illinois have been single animals at the very edge of the advance, not general populations, Johnson said. Both the rescue center and the DNR hear periodic reports that the cougars have arrived in Indiana, but "I think you've got more reports than we have," Johnson said of the past year's reports to The Herald-Times. David Pruet, a Bloomington man who says he's a taxidermist, said he was not taken seriously by DNR staffers when he reported he had spotted a cougar last year. He said he had a similar reaction in the fall of 2004 when he found a dead deer that had been lodged into a tree's branches, as a cougar might do with prey it had killed. State wildlife officials say they need conclusive evidence -- such as a documentable photo or verifiable cougar tracks -- to confirm a sighting as real. Herrberg said she was worried about what could happen to any cougar or other big cats that might be in the area. "I hope they don't shoot it," she said.